NEW SERIES: Overthrowing the Network State in collaboration with Blockchaingov
In the first episode of our series ‘Overthrowing The Network State’ (OTNS), we dive into the world of Balaji Srinivasan’s recent book The Network State. The purpose of this series is to critique The Network State while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. We are overall critical of Balaji’s specific ideas in the book, but we want to discuss it with intellectual honesty and highlight the larger concepts around how these technologies are and could subvert state structures.
For this episode I’m joined by Primavera De Filippi (@yaoeo), a long time researcher on blockchain and the director of Blockchaingov as a co-host. We give a brief overview of who Balaji Srinivasan is, some of the main concepts in his book, our initial criticisms, and some alternative book recommendations. By OTNS we don’t want to only provide critique, but we want to provide a very different conceptual framework that answers why people people seem to be tapping into the book. For us this is about exit-based governance (lack of politics with an idealistic view of autonomy ) vs. commons-based governance (which recognizes the inherent ‘interdependence’ of the world and global society).
Blockchaingov is a 5-year long, transdisciplinary research effort aimed at restoring trust in institutions at the community and global levels, by promoting better on chain and off chain distributed governance practices. Throughout the series, each discussion will include me and a member of Blockchaingov with either a new guest each episode or just a discussion between us to tackle various topics from the book.
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3 responses to “Overthrowing The Network State: An Initial Critique and Alternatives”
[…] Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov where we critique The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. We are overall critical of Balaji’s specific ideas in the book, but we want to discuss it with intellectual honesty and highlight the larger concepts around how these technologies are and could subvert state structures. You can find the first episode of OTNS where we give our initial criticisms and alternatives here. […]
[…] you haven’t already, make sure to check out the first episode of OTNS. Now, tune in to the second episode of ONTS and discover more about these […]
[…] Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov where we critique The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. We are overall critical of Balaji’s specific ideas in the book, but we want to discuss it with intellectual honesty and highlight the larger concepts around how these technologies are and could subvert state structures. You can find the first episode of OTNS where we give our initial criticisms and alternatives here. […]